


how many candles before it's a hazard?

by chxsdez



Series: post toa shenanigans [2]
Category: The Trials of Apollo - Rick Riordan
Genre: M/M, and his kids are chaotic shits, its apollos birthday, the apollo cabin has one braincell between them and its wills, well his kids and nico
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-09
Updated: 2020-08-09
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:00:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25811716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chxsdez/pseuds/chxsdez
Summary: Months after Apollo starts working at Camp Half-Blood, his birthday ends up rolling around.He says he doesn't want anything.His children, of course, don't listen.(reading the first one-shot isn't necessary)
Relationships: Nico di Angelo/Will Solace
Series: post toa shenanigans [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1868134
Comments: 8
Kudos: 233





	how many candles before it's a hazard?

**Author's Note:**

> I must warn you, my writing starts to deteriorate near the end, sorry about that

Apollo had forgotten to translate his birthday across the calendar changes. Eventually, this led to his forgetting his birthday all together. But he didn’t care much, gods didn’t celebrate birthdays or hold them in such high esteem as mortals.

  


His children, however, were not satisfied with this answer.

  


Specifically, Kayla and Austin.

  


They’d managed to get him to tell them his birthday was the seventh day of the seventh month, but calendars were different back then, so it doesn’t mean the same thing now. Kayla and Austin, of course, stopped listening after they got a date out of him.

  


Apollo had started working at camp a few months ago, and his birthday was coming up, and since he had, without fail, helped celebrate every birthday that had come up over those few months, his two children had decided to thank him with a party.

  


Specifically, with a cake.

  


Their father was turning 4614, so naturally, his children were huddled over a notebook in the middle of the cabin floor, trying to figure out a way to handle the candle situation without burning the camp to the ground.

  


Kayla chewed the end of her pencil. ‘Just how close can candles be before we’re in trouble?’

  


‘I asked Nyssa, she said three inches.’ Austin answered, twirling his pencil across his knuckles.

  


‘How do you do that?’

  


‘Do what?’

  


‘That.’ Kayla attempted to do the same but just ended up flinging her pencil across the room.

  


‘Magic. But if the candles have to be three inches apart, then that’s a lot of layers.’ Austin said. ‘It’s gonna be so tall.’

  


‘You could ask the Hephaestus kids?’

  


Kayla and Austin both jumped back.

  


‘Gods Nico! Don’t do that!’ Kayla yelled, hand over her heart.

  


Nico dropped down beside them. ‘But it’s funny.’

  


‘Why are you here anyway?’ Austin asked, pointing his pencil at him.

  


Nico shrugged. ‘Looking for Will, this sounded more fun though.’

  


‘Valid.’

  


Kayla straightened up again. ‘Ok, say we can get cabin 9 to make cake pans big enough, how do we actually bake the damn thing? Especially without dad noticing.’

  


‘Simple, we go into the forges and torch it.’ Nico suggested.

  


‘Ooh, fire.’ Austin said, smiling at Nico.

  


‘Ok, so we’re definitely gonna need to get cabin 9 in on this. Now ingredients, how do we know how much we need?’ Kayla grabbed Austin’s pencil and scribbled some things on the notepad.

  


‘Get one of the Athena kids to sort that out, they love maths problems.’ Nico said, handing Austin a pen.

  


‘Ok.’ Kayla turned to a new page and scribbled a few notes on it and ripped it out, handing it to Nico. ‘Take this to the forges, get measurements for all the cake tins, then come back here.’

  


Nico took the page, then rolled under the nearest bed, disappearing into the shadows.

  


Naturally, the children of Apollo played a few rounds of hangman while they waited. On the fourth round, Nico rolled back out from under the bed. ‘Got it.’

  


Kayla took the page, then recoiled when she saw it. ‘Woah.’

  


Nico adopted a disgusted expression. ‘I know, I’m pretty sure only cabin 6 can read that now.’

  


Kayla scribbled a few more things on another page handed them to her brother. ‘Be a dear and run that over to cabin 6.’

  


‘Why me?’ Austin complained, taking the page anyway.

  


‘Because Nico’s already shadow travelled and I’m still on thin ice with the whole cabin after The Incident.’

  


‘It’s not my fault you thought it was a good idea to tell them you saw a spider.’ Austin grumbled, getting up and walking out the door.

  


Kayla turned to Nico. ‘Hangman?’

  


Austin returned a few minutes later, head hung low, Will trailing after him.

  


‘Just what are you three doing?’ Will asked, crossing his arms.

  


Nico put on his brightest smile and turned to his boyfriend. ‘Will! Did I tell you how good you look today?’

  


‘Nice try, di Angelo.’ Will said, dropping down on the floor. ‘I’ll say again, what’re you planning?’

  


Kayla groaned and threw herself against the bed behind her. ‘Planning a cake for dad’s birthday. How did you find out?’

  


Will crossed his arms. ‘He’s already said he doesn’t want anything. And the cabin 6 kids aren’t stupid, their mom’s the goddess of wisdom, they knew something was up when Austin came in with these.’ He said, waving the pieces of paper.

  


‘We wanted to do something special for him.’ Nico shrugged.

  


‘We?’

  


Nico started at Will with a straight face. ‘I accidentally called him dad. I can’t double back without embarrassing myself, so I’m doubling down.’

  


Will laughed and pulled Nico in for a hug. ‘You’re such an idiot sometimes.’

  


‘Yeah, yeah.’ Nico pushed himself off.

  


‘Anyway,’ Austin piped up. ‘We wanted to know how big the cake needed to be so we don’t burn the place down with all the candles.’

  


Will blinked. ‘You do realise you can use those number candles, right?’

  


Nico, Kayla and Austin all stared at each other. ‘Oh.’

  


Will buried his face in his hands. ‘I love you all, but at what cost?’

  


‘But they don’t do candles above 100’ Kayla pointed out; face twisted in confusion.

  


Will stared at her. ‘No, but they do 46 and 14.’

  


Kayla furrowed her brow. ‘But…’ It clicked. ‘Oh! Ok, that makes sense.’

  


Will groaned and threw himself down on the ground.

  


Nico pulled him back up. ‘So, you’re suggesting that we give your dad, a literal god, a pitiful little normal-sized cake with a few candles? Seriously Will? This is exactly why we didn’t include you in this.’

  


Will hung his head. ‘If you dumbasses insist on being extravagant, just do seven tiers, it’s his sacred number.’

  


The other three looked at each other again.

  


‘That could work.’ Austin said.

  


Will took the pad and pulled a pen from his shirt pocket. ‘So, Fiona from Aphrodite helps her dad in their bakery, they do these really extravagant cakes that taste amazing, I got one for my mom’s birthday and it was amazing. Anyway, she knows all the best recipes and she does the majority of the cake designs for their company, so just explain everything to her and she’ll probably draw up a few designs.’

  


‘What if she wants something?’ Nico asked.

  


‘If just making a cake for a god somehow doesn’t appeal to her, just give her this.’ Will pulled out a twenty-dollar bill. ‘She gave me a huge discount for my mom’s cake, and I feel bad so I’m always trying to give her some money to make up for it. Just don’t tell her it’s my money.’

  


Austin grabbed the money and handed it to Kayla. ‘Your turn, go fetch.’

  


Kayla stuck her tongue out and got up.

  


Will fished more money out of his pocket. ‘Nico, go to cabin 11 and see if they can get you the candles, if they don’t, I give you permission to shadow travel and get some.’

  


Nico took the money and went to roll under a bed, but Will bent the light to shine under it. ‘Use your legs.’

  


Nico huffed and stood up. ‘You’re no fun.’

  


Kayla returned a few minutes later, a small Latina girl carrying a sketchbook in tow. ‘She’s bored so she didn’t want anything.’ Kayla said, handing Will his money back.

  


Fiona stopped in her tracks. ‘Will Solace, how many times do I have to tell you it’s fine? You’re my friend, I gave you the friend discount, stop worrying.’ She took a cushion off one of the beds and set it down on the floor. ‘Besides, it’s not like my family needs money.’ She said, sitting down on the cushion. ‘There’s a reason my dad is so liberal about who I let get a friend discount.’

  


Will shrugged. ‘What can I say? My mom raised a gentleman.’

  


‘Maybe tone it down a bit?’ Fiona suggested with a smile, opening her sketchbook. ‘So, what’re you guys thinking?’

  


The group brainstormed cake ideas for a while, Nico coming back halfway through with the candles. Luckily Kayla and Austin had anticipated a big cake, so they still had two weeks before Apollo’s birthday which was just more than enough time for Fiona to contact her dad and ask for everything they needed.

  


After breakfast on July 7th, Kayla, Will, Nico and Fiona all made their way to the Big House. Austin had been found to be a hazard in the kitchen, so he was charged with distracting Apollo until they were done. Obviously, they couldn’t take up the kitchen for the whole day without letting Chiron know, so he had kindly set everything out ready for them.

  


Dionysus walked in while they were working, but he seemed satisfied enough that they had Chiron’s permission to be there, so he just got a Diet Coke and left.

  


After hours spent in the kitchen, labouring over the cake, they were done.

  


‘And there.’ Fiona announced after finishing the last swirl. ‘I think it looks pretty good if I do say so myself.’

  


Nico looked at her. ‘Uh, we helped too?’

  


‘You baked, yeah, but not one of you touched the fondant or any other decorations, so I think I can take the credit for that.’

  


Will placed his hand on Nico’s shoulder. ‘It looks amazing, thanks so much for helping. Nico, can you go get everyone ready?’

  


Nico disappeared to go round up all the campers in the dining pavilion, leaving the others to try and carry the cake out. After a few close calls and a lot of tight manoeuvring, they got it outside, and it was smooth sailing from there.

  


‘Hey dad!’ Kayla yelled as they neared the dining pavilion.

  


Apollo looked over at them, physically restraining Meg from attacking one of the Hermes kids. ‘I’m a bit- what’s that?’

  


Austin walked over to the trio with the cake with the rest of cabin 7, leading them all in a rendition of Happy Birthday. Some kids from the Hephaestus cabin rolled over a table and helped lower the cake onto it. Apollo then changed from keeping Meg from the Hermes kid to keeping her from the cake, all while trying to blink back tears.

  


‘I thought I told you not to do anything.’ Apollo said once they were done, reaching up to wipe a tear from his eye.

  


Kayla shrugged. ‘We didn’t listen.’

  


‘I can see that.’ Apollo smiled and pulled his children in for a hug.

  


‘Hey! I helped too!’ Nico yelled, weaselling his way into the group.

  


Apollo looked at him. ‘Did you only help because you called me dad once?’

  


Nico kept a straight face. ‘I never admit my mistakes, I just dig a deeper hole.’

  


Apollo laughed. ‘Well thank you.’

  


‘Can I please eat the cake now?’ Meg yelled.

  


A wave of laughter broke out and everyone quickly sat at their tables as slices of cake were handed out. Meg sat beside Apollo at his table and proceeded to concern everyone by the speed at which she ate. Apollo didn’t look fazed at all; in fact, he had started timing how long each slice took her.

  


After the cake had been successfully obliterated, everyone made their way to the amphitheatre. Apollo pulled Kayla, Austin, Will and Nico aside.

  


‘Thank you, you really shouldn’t have done all that.’

  


Kayla crossed her arms. ‘Shut up, you earned that. You’ve been so committed to celebrating everyone else’s birthday, baking a cake was really the least we could do.’

  


Austin started dancing around like he needed the bathroom. ‘This is sweet and all, but I might have ever so slightly written a song, so if we could hurry it up?’

  


Apollo’s eyes lit up. ‘Oh well, in that case, let’s go!’

  


Nico furrowed his brow. ‘Oh, so a cake, that’s too much, but a song is just fine?’

  


Apollo shrugged. ‘I might be less of a dick, but I’m still a god. We like songs written in our honour.’

  


Austin grabbed his father’s wrist and started pulling him along. ‘Come on!’

  


The group laughed and jogged over to the amphitheatre.

  


Kayla smiled to herself as Austin played his song. All in all, today had been a success.

**Author's Note:**

> look, i know i've probably messed up the characterisation, but i'm doing this to have fun so i honestly don't care all that much. writing is just i way that i destress that i also decide to share


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